


The Knight

by bluesailor



Series: Nightmares [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Blade, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3565778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesailor/pseuds/bluesailor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after Executioner's Song. Both boys are having nightmares, and not hiding it as well as they think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Knight

Dean doesn't know where the First Blade is, but he can hear it.

He can mostly ignore it during the day, when he can drown it out with the noise of working on the Impala, cooking, or doing research with Sam. But at night, when the bunker is quiet, just before he falls asleep, the silence itself seems to take on that high, mind-numbing note. And to this poisonous lullaby, he sinks into dreams of blood and teeth and murder.

This particular night, he finds himself staring into his own face-- a twisted, feral version of it, with black demon eyes. His alter ego speaks, but the voice issuing from his mouth sounds wrong, it isn’t Dean’s voice, it sounds much more like Cain’s...and it tells him, _“Then would come the murder you’d never survive, the one that would finally turn you into as much of a savage as it did me.”_ Dean tries to protest, but he can’t make a sound, and he jerks awake gasping and making strangled noises in the back of his throat.

Dean lies there for a few moments, waiting for his heart rate to return to normal, scanning the dark bedroom. He can just distinguish the dark blobs that are his guns decorating the walls, the blocky shapes of his dresser and bookcases, the books and papers scattered across the floor. All is silent, and the song of the First Blade is in his head again. Suddenly, Dean wishes he was back in a dingy motel room with scratchy sheets and lumpy pillows. As much as Dean likes having his own room--and as glad as he is that it means he can keep his nightmares private--he misses having Sam's reassuring presence a few feet away, misses the sound of his even breathing filling the room.

Now, though, Sam is down the hall and Dean will have to get up and go over there if he wants that reassurance. He sighs and heaves himself upright, bare feet padding soundlessly on the floor. He listens briefly outside the door to Sam’s bedroom. At first, he hears nothing. Then, a faint whimper filters out into the hallway. Dean clenches his teeth and eases the door open.

Sam’s moving restlessly under the covers, clearly having a nightmare of his own. Dean steps forward, thinking he should go to him, wake him up, try to comfort him like he always used to when they were younger. But then Sam speaks in his sleep, and his words stop Dean cold.

“Dean, stop! Listen! I know you’re still in there, somewhere. I don’t want to use this blade on you!”

Dean feels sick. It’s not just any nightmare Sam’s having--he’s dreaming about the day Dean almost killed him. Would have, if Cas hadn’t stepped in. Now everything in him is screaming that he needs to go over there and wake Sam out of that dreadful nightmare, shatter the terrible images he must be seeing. But will Sam want to see him, having just awoken from such a dream? Would he want comfort from Dean, having just relived the moment when Dean tried to kill him?

Dean hesitates too long. Sam stirs, waking, and sits up when he makes out Dean's outline in the open doorway.

"Dean? What're you doing?"

Dean swallows, willing his voice to be steady when he speaks. "Couldn't sleep." It comes out a little hoarse. "Thought I'd check on you."

There's a pause, and Dean expects Sam to whine at him that he's not a little kid, hasn't been for a long time, and he doesn't need to be checked on in the middle of the night. So he's totally unprepared when Sam says sympathetically, "Another nightmare?"

Dean stills, his stomach plummeting. "What? No," he denies flatly, knowing as he says it that it’s already too late. Even in the dark, he can tell Sam's giving him The Bitchface.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, in that irritating way of his.

Dean shifts his weight from foot to foot, looking down at the floor. “How did you know?” he asks in a low voice.

“Come on, Dean,” Sam says, exasperated. “Did you think you were the only one who can't sleep sometimes?"

“Guess I’m not.”

“Guess not.” Sam’s voice sounds hollow.

 _I'm not a demon anymore,_ Dean wants to say. _You cured me, Sammy._ Except that he's not so sure of that himself, these days.

"Hey Dean?" Sam sounds uncomfortable. Dean rouses himself from his thoughts.

"Yeah?"

“Um… you wanna give the separate rooms a pass for tonight?"  

Dean surprises himself by feeling nothing but profound relief at the suggestion, as though he had been waiting anxiously for it all along. He shuts the door behind him, shuffles over to the bed, and climbs in next to Sam. Then, before he can talk himself out of it, he sidles over until he can feel his brother's warm body pressed against his side. Sam lets out a breath, as though he’s relieved, too, and presses back.

The silence seems different in Sam's room. Calmer, quieter somehow. It's only right as he's about to fall asleep that Dean realizes he can't hear the First Blade's song anymore. _Huh,_ he thinks. _Maybe Sam's cure worked after all._

Then he slips gratefully into a dreamless sleep.

 

 


	2. The Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set at the beginning of Inside Man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I totally wasn’t planning on writing a second part to this story, but then Inside Man aired, and I still haven’t stopped screaming over how similar the first scene was to what I had written. And of course, after seeing that, I couldn’t *not* write this. Many thanks to the lovely RiverSongTam for her help on this chapter!
> 
> UPDATE: I decided to make this work into a series, since I apparently keep writing these drabbles. This chapter has been reposted as the second installment.

The sound of his name drags Sam out of a deep sleep and back to partial consciousness. He squints blearily at the door, expecting to see Dean hovering there, ready with some excuse about not being able to sleep and wanting to check on him. But then he hears his name again—a shout, long and anguished, echoing down the hallway—and jolts fully awake.

It wouldn’t be the first time Dean has started screaming in his sleep, but Sam’s heart is pounding as he swings his feet onto the floor. He knows the bunker is secure, that it’s probably just a nightmare, but all the same, Dean sounds like he’s really in trouble. Another shout rings through the bunker, and Sam grabs his gun from his bedside table, flicking off the safety and holding it in front of him as he starts down the hallway, scanning for any potential danger.

Dean’s voice grows louder as Sam approaches his bedroom. Without pausing to listen, Sam flings the door open, gun at the ready. Light from the hallway filters over the bed, glistening on sweaty skin—Dean, thrashing under his blanket, moaning and clenching his teeth. Definitely a nightmare. Sam checks the rest of the room anyway before lowering his gun and looking back at Dean.

Until recently, Sam would have stood, quiet and uncertain, by Dean’s bed, watching over him until the nightmare ended, and then going back to his own room without waking him. Dean had never mentioned the nightmares by the light of day, and Sam, following his lead, hadn’t mentioned them either— Dean’s _or_ his own. But, of course, neither of them could ever keep anything hidden from the other for long, and trying hadn’t done much good anyway. Watching his brother in the throes of yet another nightmare, Sam decides that as of tonight, he’s done following Dean’s lead.

Dean has stopped making noise, but he’s still moving fitfully. With a vague feeling of relief, Sam reaches out and gives his shoulder a firm shake.

“Dean. _Dean._ Wake up.”

It takes several seconds’ more shaking, but Dean’s eyes finally blink open and he sits up with a gasp, his hand sliding under his pillow to clench around whatever weapon he has stashed there.

“Hey,” Sam whispers to him, “you with me? It was just a nightmare.”

Dean looks at him, but doesn’t say anything. He withdraws his hand from beneath the pillow and brings it up instead to rub at his ears, as though trying to block out an annoying sound.

“Dean. You hear me?”

“Yeah,” Dean answers, sounding almost surprised. He rubs at his ears again. Sam listens for a moment, but doesn’t hear anything.

“You good?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Dean says again. He gives his head a little shake. “Bad dream.”

“I gathered,” Sam says drily. He knows he shouldn’t push it, but Dean’s screams of his name are still echoing in his head, and he can’t help asking, “You want to tell me what it was about?”

Dean’s quiet for a long moment. Then he says, “Doesn’t matter. It’s never going to happen.”

Sam knows from his tone that’s all he’s going to say on the subject. He sighs, gets to his feet, crosses the room, and shuts the door, throwing them into nearly complete darkness. He feels his way back over to the bed and sets his gun on the nightstand, making sure the safety is back on.

“What are you doing?” Dean asks as he climbs into the bed.

“What do you think?”

“You don’t have to stay.”

“Yes, I do. It’s the only way either of us is getting any more sleep tonight, and you know it.”

Dean huffs at that, but apparently can’t think of an argument against it, because he offers no further protest as Sam pulls the covers over himself.

“At least don’t steal all the blankets,” he grumbles, yanking them back over to his side.

“Hey! _You’re_ the one stealing the blankets,” Sam objects, yanking back. 

“They’re _my_ blankets.”

Sam rolls his eyes and tugs enough blanket away from Dean to cover his feet. “Shut up and go to sleep.”

“What’s the point of even having my own room?” Dean mutters, but there’s no real venom behind it. Sam grins, presses up against him, and grins even wider when Dean presses right back.

The only other disturbance that night is a renewed tug-of-war over the blanket.


End file.
